The past two weeks have brought a lot of changes to Columbia County's leadership. And let's face it, jaws all over the county have been dropping like Lady Gaga's microphone at halftime of the Super Bowl.

Let's start with the controversial resignation of EMA Director Pam Tucker. She stepped down weeks after the exit of her right-hand man, and longtime deputy director, Rusty Welsh.

Both are playing the proverbial blame game for their departures - Welsh blamed Tucker and Tucker blamed county administrator Scott Johnson.

When my computer and I returned home after a two-week "writing vacation," I thought I would never get the assorted cords, plugs, and equipment hooked up again. The solution? Replace the 6-plug extension cord/surge suppressor that must have died somewhere en route.

More than a century ago, New York Surrogate Judge Gideon J. Tucker handed down a legal decision that included this observation of state lawmakers: "No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session."

In my years of observing the Georgia General Assembly in action, I would have to say that Judge Tucker mostly got it right on that one.

I think of that famous quote every year when the Legislature cranks up for another session, and one way or another, our lawmakers usually manage to live up to it.

Both of my cats came out of other people's barns, my preferred source for felines. The male has been neutered, and the female has been spayed; not because I'm a particularly responsible pet owner, but because I do not wish to be anyone's preferred source for kittens.

On behalf of the State Bar of Georgia, I wish to extend congratulations to Augusta Judicial Circuit District Attorney R. Ashley Wright on her recent appointment by Gov. Nathan Deal to serve as a Superior Court judge for the Augusta Circuit, which covers Burke, Columbia and Richmond counties.

By the time you read this, I'll be gone, gone to an isolated sub-arctic place where the people persevere through perpetual Georgia winter weather twelve months of the year.

Lerwick, the capital of the Shetland Islands and the northernmost town in the United Kingdom, has never in recorded history hit 75 degrees and rarely goes below freezing. A typical January Tuesday is overcast, 34 degrees and raining. A typical July Thursday is overcast, 55 degrees and raining. No one in Lerwick whines about global warming.

The new president has finished filling the vacancies in his cabinet by nominating Georgia's own Sonny Perdue as the secretary of agriculture.

Perdue, of course, is well known here for the two terms he served as governor. While his administration didn't produce much in the way of significant policy initiatives - unless you count a fishing center in Houston County - Sonny was always good for a laugh or two.